'Pressing

The letterpress is on its way to functionality! The hope was to have it ready this weekend, when my partner in crafty-crime will be here to help decipher the mystery, but we are not certain some vital parts will arrive in time. Disappointing. But exciting to finally be on the verge of learning how all this works!


Tools of the trade: The lovely man at Ace Hardware recommended the SOS pads, and let me tell you, those things are like magic at getting off the rust. And of course the trusty WD40 (which I always accidentally call DW40 and therefore completely lose face with the Ace Hardware man I'm sure) was put to good use. I think I used the entire can.


Not quite entirely clean, but a good two hours scrubbing and oiling I would say, and the parts that are supposed to move seem to move, and the hinges and springs are well lubricated, and the platen is as shiny as my arms and those fantastic SOS pads could handle in one sitting.


She's a beaut, yessiree! I just can't wait to ink up and make the first print!

She's There!

Check out the new doll and support Craft Hope for Haiti at crafthope.etsy.com.

Thank you!

An Introduction

This is the new paper doll I have mentioned before. She has been ready for a while, but I had to do a final print to make sure the outfits still fit when everything was cut out. And that inexplicably took a while, but now it is satisfactorily taken care of and the new lady is ready to be seen.


She will be in my shop shortly. However, she will be available first at Craft Hope for Haiti, a shop of craft work sold to benefit Doctors Without Borders work in Haiti. The Craft Hope organizers have apparently had an fantastic response from artists and the public, which is so terrific.

There is some lag time in getting items posted, so I am not sure when this doll will be available. Do visit the CraftHope Shop though to see all the other wonderful things that have been created and donated to this cause.

Boy Oh Boy, Its 2010!

To a terrific New Year!

I Made Caramel!

Caramel, it seems, is quite a popular holiday tradition. I saw recipes in countless places around the nets, inspiring me to give it a whirl myself.

The one criteria I had was the recipe must not call for corn syrup. Which recipe was actually fairly hard to find; it seems corn syrup makes caramel creation much simpler and is definitely a popular choice. I ended up finding one here that fit the bill entirely. After a quick run to the grocery store for a candy thermometer I was ready to go.

Of course, I decided to embark on this candy making experiment about 20 minutes before leaving for a holiday party, so time wasn't really on my side. Add to this that I really did not know what it meant to let the sugar and honey "carmelize" or exactly how to read my thermometer, and it is probably not surprising that this first, and let's call it trial, batch did not turn out the lovely chewy caramels I had envisioned. Instead, we have a ridiculous amount of soft caramel sauce. Not actually too terrible after all.


The next time, however, I meant business.

I cooked that honey and sugar until it was a strongly odorous (you might want to warn the family), lava-like concoction, whisked in the butter and hot cream (that part is a blast, sometimes quite literally. Be careful.) and let the whole deal boil and bubble until I was sure it was 260˚F at least (my candy thermometer is somewhat difficult to read). I had a cookie tray all lined with parchment and poured the sticky liquid out, creating a disappointingly small, shallow puddle. It was the right color, though, and hardened nicely on a spoon under cold water. Thrilled with my success, I tried the whole thing again. This time I used a small cake pan lined with parchment and I would definitely recommend this strategy.


In the end, the cookie tray caramels stayed pretty soft and very thin. The cake pan batch hardened beautifully and I sliced them into small squares, twisted them in wax paper, and had a mountain of lovely smooth caramels to package and give away. I salvaged the thin batch by folding the whole thing in half. They were just hard enough to cut and wrap, though scraping them back out of the wrappers to eat is a little tough. However, they taste divine.

And a Very Merry Christmas to You!

Happy Solstice!

Welcome back, light!